Amanda Todd was in Grade 7 when she made a mistake that turned out to have fatal consequences.

With an adolescent’s fierce and false sense of independence and invincibility, she turned a webcam on and went into Internet chat rooms. In what she believed was the anonymity of a virtual world, she fell prey to praise.

“Got called stunning, beautiful, perfect, etc. Then wanted me to flash,” Amanda later wrote on a slip of paper, which became part of her nine-minute video that documents some of what followed.

A year later, Amanda did flash.

And what followed is almost too painful to read on card after card held up in the video by the thin, long-haired girl with her face mostly in shadow.

Amanda’s virtual world collided with her real one. She was literally exposed to everyone she knew by someone. A boy? A man posing as a boy?

How did he know who her friends were, where she lived, where she went to school?

Her image duplicated and then multiplied many times.

The only thing Amanda knew was this: “I can never get that photo back. It’s out there forever.”

Among the many complicated threads of Amanda’s short and tragic story is the widespread and early sexualization of girls.

Push-up bras for girls as young as seven. Pole dancing lessons for children. Beauty contests that turn even toddlers into sex objects. A lingerie football league.

Even the photos on the website of a cheerleading squad that Amanda once belonged to emphasize make-up, pouting and poses more than athleticism.

In Canada, girls aged 13 to 15 are now at the highest risk of being sexually assaulted. They are four times more likely to be raped than women aged 18 to 24.

The American Psychological Association says early sexualization plays a major role in the deterioration of girls’ mental health.

The more sexualized images girls consume, the APA says, the more likely they are to agree that it’s okay for women and girls to be shown as sexual objects, and the more strongly they believe that their value depends on appearance.

The more sexualized images of girls and women that boys see, the more sexist their beliefs become and the less able they are to have normal relationships with girls and women.

It should be no surprise then that nearly 70 per cent of Internet intimidation is aimed at young girls and women. Nor is it surprising that pedophiles prowl online chat rooms, hunting for prey.

But that’s only part of this complicated story.

Nearly one in every five girls couldn’t access mental health services when they need them, according to the McCreary Centre’s last survey of B.C. adolescents’ health in 2008.

Nearly one in five also reported extreme levels of stress in the previous month. One in five girls had deliberately harmed themselves without the intention of committing suicide. Only one girl in 10 was satisfied with her body image, compared with one in five boys.

Suicides and suicide attempts by youths are declining. But the McCreary Centre’s survey indicated that girls remained twice as likely as boys to attempt it, and sexually abused youths are more than four times as likely to try to harm themselves.

There’s also a caution about a copy-cat effect buried in the McCreary numbers that ought to be heeded in the wake of Amanda Todd’s highly publicized death. Within a year of a close friend or family member attempting or committing suicide, youths are six times more likely to attempt it themselves.

There is some comfort to be found in the prospect that Amanda’s video and her death may raise awareness about the many risks facing young people. But that’s not enough. There needs to be help readily available to them.

There also needs to be justice.

The unnamed “he” on Amanda’s video — who convinced her to “flash” for the webcam, then relentlessly tracked and intimidated her — needs to be found and punished.

But he’s not alone. There were other tormentors who taunted her. Alienated her. Physically abused her.

They are responsible for Amanda’s arms being scarred from too many cuts. A cruel gang of kids beat her.

They led her to drink bleach and then mocked her for not drinking enough, for not having used the right brand, for not having died.

They sucked the life out of her until she could bear it no longer. It’s little different from the swarm of Victoria teens — seven girls and one boy — who murdered 14-year-old Reena Virk in 1997.

We shouldn’t trivialize what they did to Amanda by calling them bullies, even if all are adolescents themselves.

They need to be named for what they really are: Tormentors, torturers, and maybe even murderers. And they need to be brought to account.

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